Right to health being perverted by abortion extremism

19 October 2007

Right to health being perverted by abortion extremism London, 19th October 2007 - The worldwide pro-abortion movement is perverting international law and basic medico-legal concepts to claim that the protection of unborn children is a violation of fundamental human rights. Speakers at the Women Deliver conference being held in London are claiming - falsely - that abortion is necessary to protect the lives and health of women. Mary Robinson, a former Irish president and a former UN High Commissioner, told delegates: "Preventable maternal mortality and morbidity is a violation of women's right to life, health, equality and non-discrimination. The time has come to treat this issue as a human rights violation, no less than torture, 'disappearances', arbitrary detention and prisoners of conscience." She warned that governments would be "held to account for their policies". Speakers at the conference have emphased repeatedly that legalising and providing abortion is one of their main initiatives for - allegedly - preventing maternal mortality and morbidity. Gill Greer of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world's largest abortion provider and promoter, told the conference: "The right to control one's own fertility is the foundation of all other rights." Kate Gilmore of Amnesty International said: "A woman's sexual and reproductive health are legal rights and freedoms." Amnesty International, in common with their pro-abortion collaborators, now interpret 'sexual and reproductive health' to include a right to abortion. Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: "Abortion is the opposite of health, because abortion hurts women and kills children. Perverting the rights to life, to health and to bodily autonomy, and then using them to threaten countries which protect their unborn children, shows how extreme the pro-abortion movement has become. "This conference is loud on jargon - "synergies", "empowerment", "socialisation" - but silent on the numbers of women who die and/or suffer lasting harm from legal abortions. The conference is also ignoring the ever-growing under-population crisis affecting both developed and now even developing countries, a crisis in large part caused by the pro-abortion movement itself. "The increasing demands and false rights invented by the pro-abortion movement threaten genuine rights, national sovereignty and international law", concluded Mr Ozimic.